While under oath during his confirmation hearing before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, then-U.S. Senator, and now-U.S. Attorney General, Jefferson Beauregard “Jeff” Sessions III claimed, “…I did not have contact with the Russians.”

As multiple media outlets are now reporting, Sessions did, in fact, have contact with Sergey Kislyak, the Russian ambassador to the United States, on at least two occassions during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign:

Attorney General Jeff Sessions met twice last year with the top Russian diplomat in Washington whose interactions with President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser Mike Flynn led to Flynn’s firing, according to the Justice Department.

[…]

Sessions met with (Sergey) Kislyak twice, in July on the sidelines of the Republican convention, and in September in his office when Sessions was a member of the Senate Armed Services committee. Sessions was an early Trump backer and regular surrogate for him as a candidate.

Regardless of what type of communication took place between Sessions and Kislyak, two indisputable facts are important here. First, Sessions told a U.S. Senate committee that he “…did not have contact with the Russians”. Secondly, and contrary to Sessions’s statement under oath, there are at least two documented instances of Sessions meeting with the Russian ambassador to the United States during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign.

The fact that Sessions committed perjury during his confirmation hearing for U.S. Attorney General is grounds for impeachment. U.S. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has called for Sessions to resign the office of U.S. Attorney General. I am not an attorney or a Member of Congress, but Sessions should either resign from office or face at least one impeachment charge (for perjury).

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Opinions and punditry expressed in this blog post are solely those of the author.

While a core component of President-elect Donald Trump’s unorthodox style of politics is openly spouting all forms of bigotry and appealing to bigots in many different ways, another major component, and the component that got Trump elected, of Trump’s style of politics is his unabashed opposition to free trade policies.

Bigotry did not get Trump elected to the White House. As someone who is an election judge in Vermilion County, Illinois, it is not my responsibility to judge voters based on which candidates they vote for, but it is my responsibility, and the responsibility of my fellow election judges, to ensure that voters are able to vote for the candidates of their choice. In this year’s general election, I was one of five election judges who worked the polls in Danville Township Precinct 4 in Vermilion County, Illinois (although I live in a different part of my home county), and here are a couple of interesting results from the precinct where I worked (source here):

The first result I posted is the presidential/vice-presidential general election vote in the precinct in which I was an election judge, the second result is the Illinois state comptroller special election vote. Results do not include any late-arriving absentee ballots that have not yet been counted, which, if there are any received between now and November 22, will be counted no later than November 22. In the precinct where I was an election judge, here’s the difference between the comptroller vote and the presidential/vice presidential vote by party (mathematical formula used is D = c – p, in which c is the comptroller vote total for a political party’s nominee and p is the POTUS/VP vote; positive number means party received more votes for comptroller than POTUS/VP):

DEMOCRATIC +15
REPUBLICAN -34
LIBERTARIAN +9
GREEN +3

The differential figures are my own calculations that are based on the vote totals.

In the precinct where I worked as an election judge, Hillary Clinton got 15 fewer votes against Donald Trump than Susana Mendoza did against Leslie Munger, even though Trump is notorious for his anti-Hispanic bigotry and Mendoza is Hispanic. Had Hillary Clinton received 15 more votes per precinct across the entire country, Clinton would have won Michigan (media has not projected a winner as of this writing), Wisconsin (won by Trump), and Pennsylvania (won by Trump), which, not counting any other electoral college unit (state, Nebraska or Maine congressional district, or federal district) would have resulted in Clinton winning 274 electoral votes, which would have been enough to win the presidency.

Although trying to compare the political power of the largely technocratic state office of Comptroller of Illinois to the highly political federal office of President of the United States is like trying to compare a train to a sports car, Mendoza ran a far better campaign for the office she sought than Hillary did for the office she sought. While Hillary completely ignored large segments of the electorate that she had to win the support of (including Wisconsin, a swing state in recent presidential elections), Mendoza ran a television ad in heavily-Republican areas of Illinois that educated voters about the role of the Illinois Comptroller’s office without insulting voters in any way:

Neither Mendoza nor Munger had to take a position on issues like President Obama’s proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal because they were running for a largely technocratic office responsible for controlling Illinois state tax dollars, but Clinton and Trump, who were running for the highest and most political office in the country, did. Trump railed against the TPP, and that’s how he won enough electoral votes to win the presidency. While Trump indisputably won the presidential election, don’t tell me that Trump won because of his bigotry, because I just cited an example to prove that’s not true.

I’m not suggesting that Susana Mendoza should run for president in 2020 by any imagination, but this year’s presidential election was decided by less than 15 votes per precinct. Remember, every vote counts.

Yesterday afternoon, Hannah Chanpong, a reporter for CBS News who has been assigned to cover the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign for the network, posted a tweet, which has since been deleted by Chanpong, tweeted that “sources inside (the Clinton campaign)” were claiming that there were “worries” that Hillary may “drop out” of the presidential race. A screengrab of the now-deleted tweet from Chanpong is available here:

Whether one is a small-time blogger who doesn’t hide his or her political ideology from anyone or a journalist for a major news organization who tries to report the news and be as non-biased as possible, one thing is a constant: one is expected to be honest. It appears to me that, more than likely, A) either Chanpong was pulling “sources” out of her rear end or B) somebody within the Clinton campaign was not being honest towards Chanpong. I’m inclined to believe that the correct answer is more likely to be A) than B), but I’m not going to give a definitive answer.

I’ve never personally known Hillary, in fact, I’ve never met Hillary in person. However, Hillary has been in the national public eye for nearly my entire lifetime, and I have never known Hillary to be the kind of person to simply abandon something, whether it be a political campaign or anything else. Hillary would never, ever dedicate herself to something, only to turn around and abandon everything for no real reason.

At the very least, CBS should launch some kind of internal investigation to determine whether or not Hannah Chanpong was using her Twitter page to simply spread rumors. If she was simply spreading a rumor (which, at this time, can’t be substantiated either way), then that’s something that would be expected of a third-grader on an elementary school playground, not someone who works for a major news organization.

Current and/or former elected officials in no fewer than six foreign countries have received campaign fundraising emails from the campaign of Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican Party nominee for President of the United States. The countries in which current and/or former elected officials have received fundraising solicitations from Trump include Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, and the United Kingdom. In at least one case, a former head of government of a foreign country received a fundraising solicitation from Trump.

Trump has only recently started using emails to solicit campaign donations, and it first became clear that the Trump campaign’s email list had serious flaws when Katherine Clark, a member of the United States House of Representatives from Massachusetts and a member of the Democratic Party, received a Trump email, despite the fact that Clark is a known supporter of the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton. However, no laws were violated by Trump when his campaign sent an fundraising solicitation to Clark, because Clark is a United States citizen.

However, numerous current and former members of parliament in at least six foreign countries have clearly indicated that the Trump campaign has sent fundraising solicitations to individuals who are not United States citizens. Under the federal election laws of the United States, it is illegal for an American presidential candidate to solicit campaign donations from individuals who are not United States citizens.

At least two members of the Australian House of Representatives, Tim Watts and Joanne Ryan, reported via Twitter that they had received emails from the Trump campaign asking for campaign donations:

In case you are wondering who the former head of government who received a Trump campaign fundraising email is, it is former Canadian Prime Minister Kim Campbell, who was the last member of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada, which is now defunct, to serve as prime minister:

Anders Adlercreutz, a member of the Parliament of Finland, confirmed to Josh Marshall of the American political website Talking Points Memo that members of the Finnish Parliament have received Trump fundraising emails:

The Iceland Monitorhas reported that Katrín Jakobsdóttir, a member of the Icelandic Parliament, was one of at least three members of the Icelandic Parliament to receive campaign fundraising emails from Trump. Jakobsdóttir is the leader of the Icelandic Left-Green Alliance.

However, the strongest critic of the Trump fundraising emails to foreign politicians is Natalie McGarry, a member of the British House of Commons from the Glasgow area in Scotland. After receiving a fundraising email from Donald Trump, Jr., who was acting on behalf of his dad’s presidential campaign, McGarry wrote a response to the younger Trump in which she strongly criticized the elder Trump’s hateful, bigoted rhetoric and told the younger Trump that she hoped that American voters “reject your father fundamentally at the ballot box”. McGarry is not a member of any political party, although she was a member of the Scottish National Party until 2015. An online friend of mine posted to her social media page McGarry’s letter to the younger Trump, and it has been shared online over 1,700 times:

None of the foreign elected officials donated any money to Trump, to the best of my knowledge.

Donald Trump has proven that his presidential campaign is absolutely incompetent when it comes to operating an email list, and he has broken the law by attempting to solicit campaign donations from foreign politicians.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: The title and body of this blog post have been edited to include information provided by Wisconsin State Rep. JoCasta Zamarripa (D-Milwaukee).

The Wisconsin Government Accountability Board (GAB) incorrectly lists Wisconsin State Rep. JoCasta Zamarripa, a Democrat who represents a state assembly district entirely within the City of Milwaukee, as having filed a campaign registration statement (page 4 of this PDF file) for the Democratic nomination in a U.S. House race in the 8th Congressional District of Wisconsin (8th CD), which includes no part of the Milwaukee metropolitan area and includes the northeastern part of the state. Outagamie County Executive Tom Nelson is campaigning for the 8th CD seat in Wisconsin, but is not listed as having filed any paperwork with the GAB at this time. Additionally, the GAB lists Democrats Wendy Gribben and Jerry Kobishop as having filed declarations of candidacies with the GAB for the 8th CD race.

However, as Zamarripa stated via Twitter, this is a technical glitch of some kind on the GAB’s master list of candidates for the August primaries in Wisconsin, and that she actually filed to run for re-election to her state assembly seat:

@ProgMid It appears to be a GAB glitch between the 8th CD and my dist (8th AD). Called GAB yesterday, but office closed.

Remember when I wrote about Nation Consulting founder Thad Nation also being the head of a political front group that donated thousands of dollars to several right-wing political organizations? That was during last year’s race for the Democratic Party of Wisconsin (DPW) chair, and Nation Consulting employee Jason Rae got trounced in that race.

“Joe usually, unless he has a serious problem with the person, usually supports the incumbents. Left, right, doesn’t matter,” Suchorski said. “That was primarily it: as a fellow incumbent judge, he supported her.”

Suchorski said when (Rebecca) Bradley asked Donald to be a reference for her 2015 application, from his perspective, it was like an employee asking a boss for a reference for another job. Donald was the presiding judge on the Milwaukee County children’s court during the time Bradley was assigned to it.

The fact that Rebecca Bradley views her job as a judge as serving Scott Walker and his far-right political network and agenda (she won’t say this in public, but she does) wasn’t viewed by Joe Donald as a serious problem gives you a general idea of how awful Donald is. Thanks to people like Scott Walker and Joe Donald, Bradley is now a Wisconsin Supreme Court justice, serving Walker and his far-right political agenda.

There are three distinct candidates for Wisconsin Supreme Court. One of them, Bradley, wants to serve Scott Walker and his far-right political agenda for the next ten years. Another one of them, Donald, wants to serve a political old boys network in Milwaukee that props up corporate-minded politicians at nearly every opportunity. The other candidate, JoAnne Kloppenburg, wants to actually do the job of a Wisconsin Supreme Court justice by interpreting the law and serving the people of Wisconsin. I strongly encourage Wisconsinites to vote for Kloppenburg in the February 16 non-partisan primary.

I strongly suspect that the fact that Mike Bloomberg is considering an independent or third-party presidential bid is possibly tied to the fact that Hillary Clinton may be losing her bid for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Maybe it’s just coincidental that Bloomberg has been conducting internal polls and now is formally exploring a presidential bid at the same time that recent opinion polls have shown that Bernie Sanders has a ton of momentum going into next Tuesday’s Iowa Caucuses. However, I strongly suspect that it’s more than a coincidence. For starters, Bloomberg, despite being a former Republican, is ideologically similar to Hillary. Secondly, when it comes to issues like education and finance industry regulation, Bloomberg is anti-public education and pro-Wall Street. Those are where Hillary and Bloomberg line up.

I will not let Hillary Clinton and her ilk extort me into supporting her or any other corporatist political candidate. I am backing Bernie Sanders for the Democratic presidential nomination, and I will back the Democratic presidential nominee in the general election.

Well, this is interesting, to put it mildly…many of Hillary Clinton’s campaign donors expect Bernie Sanders to raise more money than her when the next round of federal campaign finance reports are filed next month, according to this POLITICO report:

Hillary Clinton’s donors say they think Bernie Sanders will raise more money in the fourth quarter than their candidate for the first time ever — a testament to the underdog’s online cash juggernaut and a harbinger of donor fatigue among the front-runner’s backers.

[…]

…Over the past few days, Clinton’s advisers have taken steps to stoke donor enthusiasm: Bill and Chelsea Clinton, who on Monday announced she is pregnant with her second child, have stepped up their fundraising for the campaign. They are expected to become even more involved in the campaign beginning in January.

And many of the donors POLITICO has interviewed over the last few months say the widespread perception that’s she’s a shoo-in is prompting would-be donors to remain on the sidelines — waiting to throw their financial support behind her for the only race they believe truly matters — the general election.

It’s also worth noting that the Bernie fundraising strategy of relying virtually entirely on small donors has one big advantage: Bernie can get many of the same small donors to donate to his campaign over and over again. This stands in contrast to the Hillary fundraising strategy, as many of Hillary’s big-money donors have already donated the maximum amount of money that one can legally donate to a federal campaign committee.

I’ve made no bones about how much I’ve come to despise the Obama Administration. In particular, President Obama has tried to cut Social Security benefits to retirees, and he’s fought to destroy American sovereignty by enacting free trade agreements that allow foreign countries to steal our jobs.

Now, the Obama Administration has really gone too far by blocking internet access to the official Bernie Sanders campaign website on military computers. This has been confirmed by multiple members of the U.S. Armed Forces and a group representing pro-Bernie veterans. For the Obama White House to block the campaign website of a presidential candidate on military computers is highly undemocratic and an impeachable offense for President Obama and Defense Secretary Ashton Carter. I am calling for President Obama to issue an executive order requiring the Defense Department to allow access to all presidential and downballot campaign websites on military computers. Individual members of our Armed Forces can support any presidential candidate they want, but I will not tolerate political sabotage of any kind.

Interestingly, active-duty Armed Forces members can access the Hillary Clinton (D) and Donald Trump (R) campaign websites just fine. I think we know who Obama is backing…

Although I am not an attorney, having read the lawsuit filed by the Bernie Sanders presidential campaign against the Democratic National Committee (DNC) over the ongoing voter list controversy, it’s pretty clear to me that the DNC and their voter list vendor did not follow proper procedure for dealing with the breach of the DNC master voter list.

Paragraph 13 of the lawsuit (pages 3-4) quotes part of the agreement that the Bernie campaign signed with the voter list vendor:

In view of the national political importance of the Campaign — and by extension, the importance of the Voter Data and the Agreement — the Agreement substantially restricts both Parties’ rights of termination to cases of prolonged and voluntary breach. The Agreement states, in relevant part:

Either party may terminate this Agreement in the event that the other party breaches this Agreement; the non-breaching party sends written notice to the breaching party describing the breach, and the breaching party does not cure the breach to the satisfaction of the non-breaching party within ten (10) calendar days following its receipt of such notice.

That is a very important part of the Bernie campaign’s argument, since this is clearly a contract law case.

Paragraph 14 (page 4) describes how what was outlined in Paragraph 13 is the only legal method of stripping the Bernie campaign of access to the voter list:

The Agreement does not permit either Party to suspend its performance of the Agreement prior to terminating the Agreement in accordance with the provision above.

In other words, the only way that the DNC and their vendor can legally deny Bernie access to the voter files is through the ten-day process described in Paragraph 13.

Paragraphs 20-22 (page 5) describes the glitch in the voter list database that allowed the breach to take place:

On the morning of December 16, 2015, NGP VAN released a modification (the “Release”) to the software that the Campaign and other candidates use to access Voter Data.

This Release contained a critical security flaw (the “Bug”) that allowed the Campaign and other presidential candidates to view Confidential Information disclosed by competing campaigns.

The Bug was resolved within approximately four hours, by the afternoon of December 16, 2015.

Paragraph 24 (page 6) outlines the Bernie campaign’s role as the breaching party:

Before the Bug could be resolved, several staff members of the Campaign accessed and viewed Confidential Information (the “Disclosed Information”) disclosed to the DNC by the 2016 campaign of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton (the “Competing Campaign”).

Paragraph 27 (page 6) describes the DNC’s violation of the contract between the vendor and the Bernie campaign:

On December 17, 2015, at approximately 2:47 p.m., the DNC suspended or terminated the Campaign’s Voter Data access. The suspension or termination of the Campaign’s access was undertaken without contractual cause, and in contravention of the Agreement’s termination protocols.

To put that another way, the DNC suspended the Bernie campaign’s access to the master voter list only one day after the breach occurred, and without following the ten-day process for terminating the contract outlined in the contract between the Bernie campaign and the voter list vendor. I’m not an attorney, but this looks like a solid case for the Bernie campaign.